This year's awards for independent innovations go to a diverse group of prototypes, including a DIY animatronic robot kit, a tiny digital guitar and a cardboard bike.

JamStick, a compact MIDI guitar for the video-game playing set. (Snapshot/YouTube)

For its annual Popular Science Invention Awards, the editors at the Popular Science ask independent brainiacs to submit inventions for game-changing projects born in the basement, not in the academic or corporate lab. From the submissions, 10 are selected that “best represent the spirit of homegrown ingenuity and solve real-world problems in a practical, innovative way,” the call for entries states.

This year’s winners don’t exactly fall into the “scrappy” category, but as far as innovation goes, they soar. The victors for 2013 include: Roy the Robot, a programmable animatronic robot kit; 3G, a spacesuit for space tourists; JamStick, a compact digital six-string guitar; and Alfa, a $30 bike fabricated from recycled packaging, bottles, and car parts.